Jason, Travis and I recently all started doing the Swordmaster tutorial from 3D Total
I also have been working on a couple other pieces of art. I started on an axe that I plan to ZBrush and make it look uber pretty visit my DeviantArt Page for more information. also a staff that I may Zbrush unsure if i want to yet or not. Here you go please leave critiques and comments.
Here ye go!
Swordmaster head WiP 1 by ~Gephoria on deviantART
WTFStaff 1 WIP 3 by ~Gephoria on deviantART
This is a tutorial based off my learning experiences with Autodesk's 3ds max program. With that being said this tutorial is intended for people who use 3ds max and possess basic knowledge of how to use the program (at least making primitives). With that being covered this tutorial I will cover Layers, Creating cameras in a scene, scene states, and setting up batch rendering. I will be using my own scene and do not believe in downloading stuff for this small tutorial.
Here is the Scene
In this scene I have a platform and three grenades I would like you to start by creating your cameras. To do this simply push "P" to get yourself into a perspective viewport, and when you are content with the positioning of the cameras press "ctrl + C" This will create a camera from the perspective view you are currently in. There are hundreds of ways to create cameras; this is the easiest way for me and probably most beginners also. After you have all of your cameras set in place (however many cameras you want) we can begin this tutorial.
We will start by placing everything into layers in 3ds max. think of layers just like they are in Photoshop, you can hide/unhide layers and freeze/unfreeze layers, you can also control objects by the layer they are on changing the color/scale/rotation whatever variable you can create or think of it can be manipulated by layers in max the way you can manipulate an object on the scene graph. If your scene does not have any layers currently you can make one by hitting the Tools Menu -> Layer Manager.
You select all the objects you would like on your new layer, and simply hit the "new layer" button. This puts all of the selected objects into a new 3ds max layer. The layer you have selected is important and is indicated by a check mark to the right of the name of the layer.
For an example here is my layers dialogue from this scene:
As you can see I like to place all my cameras on one layer, environment on another, and the actual model or center of attention on the default layer. NOTE: If you right click and go to unhide all it will ask if you would like to unhide all layers, if you lose something in your scene this is another way to find it as opposed to the schematic view or other methods (they all work fine I think). This isn't the best way to do it just using it for this example and it's what I’m used to.
Now that we have our layers organized properly we're almost ready. Next step is to set scene states!
You can set up your scene states by pressing the Tools Menu -> Manage Scene States. Next you are presented with a dialogue box that looks something like this:
Next I will select the layers I'd like to hide, my first one I’d like to show everything but the already hidden reference modeling pictures that I have in the scene. When the scene is ready select save button in the Manage Scene States dialogue. This created a scene state that shows everything you had shown (new items added will be excluded from this and will be shown until you re-save the scene state). Next I will do the same only having one grenade show on each one. Eventually you will have all your scene states as I do below:
Ok we are almost ready to start our batch render! How exciting!
Go to Rendering Menu -> Batch Render this will present you with a new dialogue box. Batch render works directly with the scene states, scene states works directly with layers, it all intertwines somehow and there is some programming genius out there laughing at us all but oh well here we go!
Basically all you have to do here is Click or hit the "ADD" button; this adds a line to the batch render. This line has some options
View: Name the view, doesn't matter, you can name these for your own organization.
Camera: Select the camera you would like the render to use
Output Path: completely up to you probably start with C:\...
Range: this will render 1-x frames of your animation.
Resolution: self explanatory
Scene State: set this to your predestinated scene state you would like to render
Preset: this is your own render preset choose wisely!
In the end you can either hit the render button OR you can export a *.bat batch file. To double click later and have that batch file just start rolling with all the delicious information you put into it. It will work flawlessly if you set it up right (and really it's not that complicated until you get into scenes with hundreds of objects dozens of scene states and multiple cameras).
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Greetings! I feel like I'm not posting enough but I'm content with the current rate I'm working at! I am going to be doing my secret shopper thing later this week. Let's start with the important stuff!
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My new piece of art, i have 4 more grenades coming shortly. While working on this piece I came up with my next idea for a tutorial or explanation, I will be preparing (not sure when I'll post it) a tutorial on everything from Scene States, Grouping Objects, Cameras, Layers and performing Batch Rendering in 3ds max. When rendering out the shots for the grenade above I performed a batch render, it's really easy.
Well I am losing my mind listening to "under the Sea" from the little mermaid for some reason lost my train of thought.
Interesting news I heard, I read on Kotaku that Fans of football teams (rugby for anybody not in America) are suing Game Developer Giant Electronic Arts for being placed in the most recent Madden game. I hate to think it but the designers probably wanted to add some overenthusiastic fans, and well, get sued as a result. Here is a link to the full story
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Today I will be showing the masses about three point lighting. I made this display pedestal or platform whichever you wish to call it.
This is set up with the basic 3ds max default lighting currently we are going to fix this. First thing that comes to mind with three point lighting is there's 3 lights duh! The next picture will show where i put the lights in the scene, keep in mind the key light is usually coming from above via the sun or ceiling fixture.
This is what my image looks like after rendering with the key light!
next we will add the fill light, this is the light that produces rays that bounce from different angles in front of our object. here are the settings for our fill light reference the diagram above for placement, if I had a human model on this i would want my fill light at about eye level with the model.
I did not do a render of just the fill light, sorry if i ruined your hopes and dreams during the tutorial.
Here are the settings for my backlight!
The backlight only, if you turn the fill and key lights off should look something like this:
Now in the end with all 3 lights in place positioned properly, and set up to our specifications will look something like below! This model I created is not using specular mapping, just normal and diffuse in case you were wondering by now.
I hope you enjoyed this as much as I have and hope to see you come back again, until then I'm on the quest for followers and to get out of Minnesota! Farewell Fellow Readers!
Recommended Reading List!
Game Development Essentials: Game Project Management
Game Development Essentials: Game Level Design
Game Design: Theory and Practice (2nd Edition) (Wordware Game Developer's Library)
Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume I: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3
Creating the Art of the Game
Digital Lighting and Rendering (2nd Edition)
The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque: Under the Hood of the Torque Game Engine (GarageGames)
Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp
Virtual Vixens: 3D Character Modeling and Scene Placement
3ds Max 2010 Bible
3ds Max 9 Essentials: Autodesk Media and Entertainment Courseware
Inside 3ds max 7
3D Game Programming All in One
Most of these books I have read while in college, a couple I have not but I have heard excellent stories and feedback about, I will be adding onto this list in the future and eventually it will become a widget on the side.
Well not another big update today, just showing off of my pokemon/sackman. first let's p ost Indiana Sacks and his progress, i still have yet to put other maps on here (and get the normal to work i used the wrong settings).
Now introducing my hour of boredom last night, in the form of Magneton. this electric pokemon is by far one of my favorite (design wise).
and this is the most recent, you can kind of see the progression, still have details to add, want the most detailed magneton pokemon ever for some reason. after, i'm thinking of making the other 2 evolutionary forms, in the first screenshot you can see that there is part of the magnamite form off to the right.
there is detail in the eye, but it is hard to see here. For higher rez images please visit my Imageshack account at http://profile.imageshack.us/user/Gephoria/
Well I have been meaning to update this blog in hopes of attracting more visitors (I really don't know the first thing about attracting visitors to blogs especially in the 3D community). Today i Update! in celebration i am going to drink a liter of vodka and go party and probably get laid tonight. In other news, I am becoming increasingly addicted to GameArtisans.org and their forums full of help and 3d "ness."
This is Indiana Sacks, for the (extremely late entry) in the game artisans mini challenges, this looked like fun, just did a diffuse for him so far normal, spec, glow etc, to come in a future update.
The cannon update, I updated the texture on the base ( still might change it more).
Updated the textures on the wheels (leaving it i am satisfied)
Still working out what to do for the cannon barrel and what color the hooks will end up being. After I get the cannon situated and happy with itself I am toying with the idea of modeling a pirate ship around the cannons.
Updates on other things:
Well I officially feel like i have been slacking off too much. But with my freedoms being robbed and all I guess i'm constrained to only get so much done at one time. Today has been the first day in a long time I got to sit down and enjoy modeling new stuff. From forging new ideas for games (I should really put together some concept documents for some of these ideas and no, i'm not sharing) to just having fun making 3D assets giving people good critiques and critisizm on forums. I must admit i do not visit http://www.gamedev.net often enough there is really a ton of useful information on that website from programming to art and asset creation.
Some lamps for you from amazon.com.
This is a p retty generic looking treasure chest, going to jazz this up later with a kick ass texture.
'The texture on the cannon is making me unhappy i think i am going to re-work the platform everything connects to re-model it and make it more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
The Barrels from last week
I'm loving these cannons threw some color on the naval cannon and saw how it looked, i think i'd better unwrap it to make it look the best and/or re-model the naval cannon's wooden frame due to errors I see with the mesh. Chamfering loops didn't work for me this time. 
Below are my basic models/shapes for the staff of apocalypse i modeled and next to it you can see the "pre smoothed" model that the basic shape came from, threw a UVW cyl map on it during unwrap it turned out fine i just cannot seem to locate the texture for this one at the moment.
Today I just worked on another quick update for the cannons of my life to punch through the barrier that is society into a 3d artist position somewhere at some company. Recently focusing on more on attention to detail and everything else, I think; NO, I know I will make it in the Computer Graphics Society today. Everything I have learned came together in my head a year or so ago and I am learning and harnessing new tools. I’ve been learning both in 3D computer world and in real life.
Here's the Cannon Update!
For the last couple days I have been modeling weird cannons out of boredom. I also started a couple 3D Sketchbook threads on a couple cg websites. The addresses are as fallen at the bottom of this post.
If you were curious about what they looked like here it is.
I'm finding out that my 2D skills are sadly under par. Either that or I just plain cannot concentrate whilst drawing. Either way I am keeping busy and finding new things to model and find passions in. I really find myself looking forward to the new starcraft 2 game coming out later this year. I am sadly disappointed that Blizzard announced that Starcraft II will not have a LAN (Local Area Network) option included with it. This leads me to believe that blizzard will put either a fee on the game (let's pray not) or they are sick of third party clients and trying to eliminate them by eliminating the options they utilize. Either way this makes me unsure of purchasing starcraft II. I'd rather go back to playing World of Warcraft!
As Promised here are your links.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=5966981#post5966981
http://www.game-artist.net/forums/sketchbooks/10358-gephoria-s-boredom-cannon.html#post97377
